Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (Charley Davidson)

18

That which doesn’t kill me

had better run pretty darned fast.

—T-SHIRT

“Where are you going?” I asked Reyes as he climbed out of bed.

“To your sad excuse for a kitchen.”

I gasped. No one insulted my sad excuse for a kitchen and got away with it. But then he flashed his nuclear grin and I forgot what the problem was instantly.

“Got anything to eat?” he asked.

“Does green, fuzzy stuff count?”

“I’m not really into health food,” he said with an even more dazzling grin.

When he walked by the dresser, the fact that I had taken out his picture that morning, the one of him bound and blindfolded, hit me with a jolt of panic. He didn’t even look at my dresser. He would never have seen it, but the panic that rushed through me stopped him in his tracks. I had to remember he was like me. He could feel emotion as easily as I could. Could sense it and taste it in the air. And my panic hit him hard enough to stop his forward momentum. I’d given myself away.

He turned to me, curiosity cinching his brows together. “What?” he asked, a half grin still lighting his face.

“Nothing. I just thought, I thought you were leaving.”

A deep suspicion stilled him. “Why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not. I mean, I am but only because there’s something I don’t want you to see.”

Without thought, he looked around. He didn’t spot it. It lay facedown, half covered by file folders and a brush and quite possibly a box of feminine products I had yet to transfer to my bathroom.

He turned back to me and crossed his arms. “Now I’m curious.”

I pulled my lower lip between my teeth. “What if I asked you not to be?”

“You don’t trust me?”

“It’s not about trust. Not really. Not on your end.”

He shifted his weight in thought. “So, it’s about trust on your end? As in, should I trust you?”

“Kind of, yeah. Or you’d see it that way.”

“What way, exactly?” He looked over his shoulder in confusion. If the picture had been a snake, it would’ve bit him, then he would’ve killed it in his manly warrior way. But, yes, he was that close.

“How about we go out and grab a bite?”

“Is it this?” he asked. Without looking behind him, he reached back and slid the picture off the desk.

“How’d you—?”

I stopped before digging my hole any deeper. He still had his beautiful gaze locked on mine when he brought the picture forward, but the minute it dropped, the minute his eyes landed on the image, a cold shiver of astonishment hit me. He blinked in shock.

I rose to my knees and crawled across the bed toward him. “Reyes—”

“Where did you get this?”

The next emotion to hit me was not anger or pain, but betrayal. Distrust.

“I just … A woman gave it to me. She found it in the apartment you were living in when I first met you. She’d saved it.”

“But why would you keep it?”

The storm of torment that swept through him made me light-headed. It made my chest contract and my heart ache. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked at it once since the first time.”

He rushed forward, and a blast of anger hit me. Finally, something I could deal with. “Then why keep it, Dutch?”

I raised my chin. “I don’t know.” How could I tell him I never wanted to forget what he went through? What either of us went through at the hands of that monster?

He strode out of the bedroom, picture in hand. I hurried after him as he headed for the stove. He was going to burn it. That was probably best, but for some reason—for some bizarre, inexplicable reason—I lunged for it and grabbed it away from him.

An astounded glare stole over his features. “Give it to me.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked him, knowing full well he’d never open up to me that much. Not enough to tell me about his past with Earl Walker. I could hardly blame him, but it was worth a try.

“How about I burn that and we forget all about it.”

“I can’t,” I said, trying to curb the pain in my chest, but he felt it anyway.

With a growl that sent my heart racing into overtime, he wrapped one hand around my throat and the other around my waist. From there, he led me back against the wall.

“Don’t you ever feel sorry for me, Dutch. The last thing I need is your pity.”

“It’s evidence, Reyes. If what you went through is ever questioned again, we’ll have proof. And I don’t feel sorry for you. I empathize with you.”

The grin that spread across his face no longer sat at a playful angle. It held more animosity than warmth. More intimidation than affection. And my heart broke. I thought we were beyond this. Apparently not.

He leaned in, the heat of his anger like molten lava on my skin. The visceral reaction from my body anytime he was near seemed to multiply triplefold. I inhaled through my teeth and he paused. After a moment, he placed his forehead on mine and leaned in to me, seeming just as unable to fight the attraction as I. But in his eyes, I had betrayed him. He didn’t want me looking into his past, and that is exactly what this picture represented.

When he spoke, his voice was even, his tone distant. “The minute you can tell me the difference between sympathy and empathy where that picture is concerned, you give me a call.” He pushed me back in warning before grabbing his duffel bag, heading out the door, and slamming it shut behind him. I slumped back against the wall and fought to fill my lungs.

Cookie came over the next morning with new intel on the case, and I fought to keep the telltale signs of sadness at bay.

“Okay,” she said, reading from her notes as she made herself a cup of coffee, “it seems that the gardener Mrs. Beecher told you about, Felix Navarro, died a few months ago.”

“Well, that would explain why he’s no longer their gardener. Anything suspicious about his death?”

“No. His daughter told me he died of natural causes, nothing to investigate.”

“Well, then, he’s definitely not our guy. If he did have all those pictures of Harper in his wallet, maybe he was just really fond of her.” I took a sip of coffee and sat at my breakfast bar. The boxes in the apartment had dwindled down to almost nothing. Cookie had made tons of headway in the last two days. The only boxes that remained were the ones from Area 51.

“He was,” she said. “His daughter told me he carried pictures of all his kids, and he considered both Harper and her stepbrother, Art, part of his family.”

“Oh, well, that’s sweet.”

“It is. Very. Though I can see why Mrs. Beecher would see it as suspicious, considering everything that happened.”

“True.”

She flipped to the next page. “Oh, and your uncle Bob called. That guy torched another building early this morning.”

“Same guy?”

“It would seem so. I wrote the address on the file.” She pointed to a file folder lying on my kitchen table. “Apparently the arsonist pulled someone out of the building kicking and screaming before he set fire to it.”

I sat my coffee cup down. “Well, at least he’s civic minded.”

She nodded and continued to stir her coffee as I went to grab my bag.

“Okay,” I said, “call me if you get anything else.”

“Will do.”

Just as I headed for the door, I glanced at the file folder. The recognition didn’t hit me until I’d shouldered my bag and reached for the doorknob. I stopped, remembered the address, and whirled around so fast, the world tilted off center. Hurrying back, I tore the Post-it Note with the address of the latest fire off the folder. Then the world tilted for another reason entirely.

When I pulled up to the scene of the fire, the smell of smoke billowed in through Misery’s vents, acrid and irritating. Firefighters were still working on it, shooting water in the air from huge red trucks. The whole area was taped off, and bystanders stood off to one side, watching the firefighters do their job, filming the massive wall of smoke on their phones.

I stepped out and looked up. No way was this an accident. No way was this a coincidence. This was it—the very building I’d been talking to Reyes about not three hours earlier. The one where I’d first seen him. The one where the picture was found.

I called Cookie. “Hey, hon. I need you to check something out for me.”

“You got it.”

“I want you to get that list of all the addresses the arsonist has hit. It’s in the folder. Then crosscheck those with the known addresses Uncle Bob had on Reyes Farrow when he was first arrested for Earl Walker’s murder. I have his file in the cabinet.”

“Right, I remember it.” Her words were drawn out and wary. “Do you think there’s a connection?”

“That’s what I intend to find out. Or, you know, for you to find out.” I hung up and strolled to an officer on duty. “Where’s the woman?” I asked him.

“Excuse me?” He started toward me with his palms up in warning. “You need to stay one hundred feet back.”

“The woman the arsonist dragged out before he torched the place. Where is she?”

The guy glanced around. “How did you know that?”

“I’m working with APD on this case under the supervision of Detective Robert Davidson.” When he didn’t budge, I showed him my PI license and my APD ID that identified me as a consultant. “Would you like Detective Davidson’s number?”

Before he could answer, I heard Uncle Bob’s voice. “Charley,” he said, lumbering up to me. His knee must’ve been bothering him again. “I didn’t expect you to come over. As far as we can tell, the building was empty except for that one woman. She is not happy to be out.”

I nodded. It had to be Ms. Faye—and, no, she would not be happy, but worry of a different nature knotted my gut. It must’ve shown.

“What is it, pumpkin?” Uncle Bob asked.

I offered him a weak smile. “Maybe nothing. I just … I hope it’s nothing.”

“Hon, if you know something about this case—”

“I’m not sure I do. Cookie’s looking into it now. If I get anything, I’ll call.”

He nodded.

“So, could Ms. Faye identify the arsonist?”

“Nope. Said it was too dark, but he was tall and thin.”

I wouldn’t exactly call Reyes thin, but I could see where Ms. Faye might. She had an odd way of seeing the world.

“Your Agent Carson has some pretty good leads on those bank robbers.”

“Yeah, sadly,” I said.

“Friends of yours?” he asked, his brows raised.

“Very good friends of mine. Well, except for one. He wants to take me out. And, no, not on a date,” I said, before he could ask.

“Oh, you mean like take you out take you out.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, glad we got that clear. How’s your other case coming along?”

I gave him my defeated expression. The one where my lips looked very much like they belonged in the duck family. “It’s not.”

“I’m sorry, kid. Let me know if I can help.”

“Thanks, Uncle Bob. And be careful with Ms. Faye. She has an arm on her—”

“Oh, no, already learned that.” He rubbed his shoulder. That woman was a menace.

I climbed back into Misery, going over what I knew to be fact in my head. Reyes had smelled like smoke. His shirt had been singed and he had scratches on his face, something Ms. Faye was very capable of, even with him.

For once in my life, I prayed I was wrong.

Since I was close, I decided to check in on Harper before heading to my next stop. I walked in the back to the sound of an ink gun buzzing away. One of them must’ve been working on a friend, because they didn’t open for hours.

I found Pari at her desk. “Hey, you, how’s Harper?”

“What did you do?” she asked, fumbling to find her sunglasses.

“Nothing.” I felt it was better to play innocent now while I could still lay claim to it. “Why? What’d I do?”

She slipped them on, then strode toward me. “Sienna is gone. She went back to New Orleans.”

I backed out, holding up my hands. “We didn’t do anything. She was into you, not me.”

“She came over yesterday, shaking and freaking out, saying something about you not being what you say you are.” She leveled a furious glare on me. “How did she find out?”

I couldn’t help but notice a smile on Tre’s face as he inked an octopus on a college kid’s back. The work was incredible. Behind the octopus was a labyrinth of steam-powered mechanisms. Wheels and cogs working together to push the hands of a huge clock that covered his left shoulder blade. But Tre was smiling for a different reason altogether. I was so thick sometimes. The guy was totally into Pari. He was thrilled that Sienna was gone.

I led Pari to a more private area. “My dad tried to shoot me. I ducked. That was it.”

“Your dad tried to shoot you?”

“Only twice.”

She lowered her head in defeat. “Sienna and I really connected. I thought she could be the one.”

“You’ve been seeing her for a day.”

“And it was a great day,” she said, her defensive hackles rising.

“Have you ever thought about looking closer to home?” I asked, hedging.

“What do you mean? Like, in my family? Because that’s normally frowned upon.”

“No, like in your house.” I nodded toward Tre as he added shadow to a tentacle.

At first her face contorted with a jolt of revulsion; then she rethought her expression. I could hear the cogs clicking as she peeked around the wall to take another look. “He is hot.”

“Duh.”

“But he’s just so … I don’t know, slutty.”

“You’re one to talk. Wait a minute.” I cast her a knowing smile. “You’re worried about the competition.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are—”

“Boss!” Tre called out, his voice full of mirth. “If you’re finished talking about my awesomeness, your client has decided on a color.”

She straightened. “Oh, that’s me. Tell Harper hey for me.”

“You got it.”

I wound toward the back room, but Harper wasn’t there. I checked the whole area, including the front of Pari’s parlor. No Harper. Darn. I was running out of time.

Since Mrs. Beecher had been so helpful the first time I spoke with her, I decided to question her again, only this time I’d focus on what Harper was like when she’d come back from her grandparents’ after the Lowells got married. I parked in front of her house again, admired her purple flowers again, and knocked on her door, wondering where Harper could have gotten off to.

Mrs. Beecher pulled open the solid wood door, but stayed behind the screen like last time. However, unlike last time, she seemed annoyed at my being there. Couldn’t blame her. I annoyed the best of them.

“Hi again,” I said, waving inanely. “It’s just me. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple more questions.”

She glanced over her shoulder, then said, “I have dinner on.”

“Oh, it’ll just take a minute.”

After pressing her mouth together, she nodded. She wore a gray dress this time that matched her hair and eyes, and a pale yellow apron.

“Awesome, thank you. I understand Harper stayed with her grandparents while the Lowells went on their honeymoon. Do you remember anything odd about that trip? Did Harper seem like she’d been abused in any way? Or bullied? Anything out of the ordinary?” I took out my memo pad again, just in case she gave me some juicy tidbits, because the best tidbits were juicy.

“Not especially.” She shrugged and thought back. “She’d come in every eve ning after playing out in the sun with the neighbor kids all day. Got a horrible sunburn. Other than that, she had the time of her life. She loved it out there on her grandparents’ estate.”

I paused, then ran my tongue over my bottom lip. “She’d come in?” I asked in surprise. “You mean, you were there? You were at her grandparents’ house with her?”

Her smile stretched as false as a bad face-lift. Suddenly every movement she made was calculated, every expression rehearsed. “I was, yes. I just assumed you knew that.”

“No. No one mentioned it.” Was it really so easy to dismiss the help like they didn’t exist?

A ripple of unease radiated off the woman, and I realized I might have assigned the wrong source to the fear I’d felt the first time I met her. I’d assumed she was afraid of speaking to me because of Mrs. Lowell and what she might do. I’d never imagined …

No, I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Besides the fact that I wasn’t that strong a jumper, this was a sweet old lady. Sweet old ladies didn’t stalk children. They didn’t terrorize them or bully them without a reason, and what reason would anyone have to oppress a five-year-old child?

I decided to play my ace, see if she’d show her hand. I waited a heartbeat, then said, “Well, when I talked to Harper a couple of days ago, she didn’t mention you’d been with her. But you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?”

The moment the words of left my mouth, Mrs. Beecher’s emotions went wild like I’d hit the jackpot on a slot machine. But she was a pro. Her poker face was a thing of beauty. The emotion roiling underneath her calm exterior was like a summer hurricane as seen from the calm of space.

I stood there stunned. The housekeeper? Seriously? She was four feet tall and as round as a muffin.

“I’m sorry I keep asking the same question,” I said after a quick shake to recover. “We’re just really worried about Harper. Any information you have will help.”

She suddenly seemed more fragile than fine china as she craned open the screen door and hobbled to the side. “Certainly, certainly. I’m sorry for being so rude. You come on in.” Even her voice quivered more than it had when she first answered.

Oh, yeah. This was going to end badly.

I wondered who else she had inside. A burly beefcake who did all her dirty work for her? A crazy daughter who followed her every order? She didn’t look like the type who would kill a rabbit and put it on a little girl’s bed, but stranger things had happened.

Forcing my feet forward, I stepped inside the spider’s web.

“Can I get you some tea, dear?” she asked.

So you can lace it with arsenic? I think not. “Um, no, thank you, I’m good.”

We stood in the foyer, and I couldn’t help but notice the seventeen million photographs she had of one man. They spanned his entire life from the time he was an infant until he was probably in his early forties. Her son, perhaps? Grandson?

“Now, what else would you like to know?”

Well, what I wanted to know was how on Earth I was going to prove that this sweet old lady had been threatening Harper practically her whole life. But I didn’t think I should ask her that. I totally needed evidence. Or a full confession in high def.

She looked past the foyer, but I couldn’t tell at what. Sadly, I couldn’t turn and look, too, without seeming suspicious, and I wanted this woman to trust in the fact that she had me completely and utterly fooled.

“I know this is silly,” I said, rolling my eyes with a helpless smirk, “but Ms. Lowell insists someone is trying to hurt her. Can you tell me what you remember from that time at her grandparents? Do you remember when the supposed—” I added air quotes. “—threats started?”

Her smile softened with relief. As far as she was concerned, I was just as gullible as her employers had been all those years. But I had to admit to more than my fair share of bafflement. Why would this woman terrorize a five-year-old girl? Then continue to do so her entire life? So much so that Harper had to be institutionalized? The mere thought was horrific.

I looked at the pictures that surrounded us. Maybe she had some help. It didn’t take a genius to realize there was something a tad left of kilter about the guy in the pictures. His blue eyes seemed a little too bright. His brown hair a little too unkempt. His expressions a little too feral. He reminded me of Gerald Roma from grade school, who used to burn ants with a magnifying glass. He was never quite right. It was weird that he spontaneously combusted during finals week our freshman year in college. Payback was a bitch.

Mrs. Beecher chuckled and led me farther inside. “That girl and her imagination, I tell ya. She started telling stories when she was around five and never let up.” She strolled all the way into her kitchen. I peeked into every nook and cranny I could along the way, trying to assess exactly what I was dealing with.

As luck would have it, Cookie called, her timing impeccable. “I’m sorry,” I said, pushing the icon to accept the call, “will you give me a minute? I have to take this.”

“You go right ahead, dear.”

I turned and walked a few feet away toward an open door just off the kitchen, and I found it interesting that the closer I got to that door, the more apprehensive Mrs. Beecher became.

“Hey, Cook,” I said, all cheer and goodwill. But before she could respond in kind, I said, “Yeah, I’m here talking to Mrs. Beecher now. This case is a dead end. I can’t find any evidence whatsoever of what Harper Lowell was talking about.” My words calmed the woman a bit, so I took another few steps that way.

“Okay,” Cookie said, catching on, “are you in immediate danger?”

“I don’t think so, but one never knows with cases like this.”

“What can I do?”

“Sure, I can meet Uncle Bob for coffee. Can you call him and have him meet me at that address you gave me?”

“I can definitely do that. Do I need to get emergency over there?”

“Oh, no. That’s okay. Just tell him to take his time. I’m almost finished here.”

“Okay, calling Ubie now. Be careful.”

“What? You like to look at naked men on the Internet?”

“I mean it.”

Darn. Didn’t even get a rise out of her. What good was harassment if she didn’t rise to the occasion? I hung up and took one more step closer to that door. I couldn’t see past the thick blackness, but it was cooler than the rest of the house, possibly a basement of some kind. Nothing good ever seemed to come of basements, so I started to turn back, when I heard a loud thud. A sharp pain exploded in my head; then the world tumbled around me in a series of somersaults and painful bounces.

I landed in a heap of hair and body parts at the bottom of a very solid set of stairs. One would think pine gave more than that. But crap on a cracker, that hurt.

I curled into a fetal position, cradling my head and gritting my teeth against the pain shooting through every molecule in my body. Above me, I heard a door close and then Mrs. Beecher’s feeble steps descending the stairs. She moved at a pace that would have given a baby turtle a run for his money. A cast-iron skillet hung from her hands, and I was fairly certain that was what started my tumultuous journey into the unknown. Who knew cast iron was so hard?

I still needed evidence of her involvement in Harper’s case. Right now, all I had was an assault with a skillet by an elderly woman who could claim dementia and most definitely get away with it in court. With every ounce of strength I had, I forced my muscles to relax, my body to go limp like wet noodles. Uncle Bob was on his way. Maybe I could wrap this case up before he got here.

My eyes had watered and the air felt cool against the wetness on my cheeks, but that was the only positive I could wring out of the situation. Well, that and the fact that I could probably outrun Mrs. Beecher if push came to shove. She was about halfway down the steps at that point, so I decided to save my mental strength and ponder what it would be like to live in a world where butterflies ruled and humans were their slaves.

It didn’t help. All I could think about was the pain shooting through Barbara, my brain. Normally, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to Barbara—she didn’t get out much—but today was her day to shine. I was certain parts of her were oozing out of Fred, my skull.

As I lay there channeling spaghetti, Mrs. Beecher headed toward a stack of shelves and started rummaging through old boxes, probably looking for a rusty old hacksaw to dismember me before she buried my parts in this very basement. I couldn’t help but notice it had a dirt floor. Convenient.

Then I heard something else. I looked up as Harper tiptoed down the stairs. I glared at her, but she rushed down the minute she saw me.

“Charley,” she whispered, glancing around in horror, “what happened?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked through gritted teeth, trying not to move my lips. Not sure why. I wanted nothing more than to hold my head and writhe in agony.

Harper spotted Mrs. Beecher. She put a hand on my shoulder as recognition dawned on her face. “I remembered something, so I came over here.”

“You really need to leave. She may not look like much, but that woman has a wicked left hook.” I glared at her over my shoulder. “Freaking cheater. How the fuck did she wield a cast-iron skillet? She’s the size of a tennis ball.” But I’d lost Harper. She was staring at Mrs. Beecher’s back, a combination of astonishment and anguish in her eyes. I had anguish in my eyes, too, but for a completely different reason.

“Harper,” I whispered, trying to coax her back to me. Thankfully, Mrs. Beecher seemed to be unable to hear anything under a dull roar. “Sweetheart, what do you remember?”

Harper’s huge brown eyes glanced down at me but didn’t quite focus. “Her grandson,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Dewey was a little older than me. He lived with us. With Mrs. Beecher in her apartment.”

The pain ebbed slightly, the throbbing becoming almost tolerable. “What happened, hon? She stayed with you at your grandparents’ house while your parents went on their honeymoon. Did her grandson hurt you?”

Her expression was so distant, I was afraid she wouldn’t answer. But after a minute, she said, “No. Not me.” She put her hands over her mouth. “A little boy. I think he killed a little boy.”

My eyes slammed shut in a feeble attempt to block the mental image her words had conjured.

“Mrs. Beecher found Dewey. He was trying to wake the little boy up, but he couldn’t. That’s when she saw me.”

I looked back at her. “Mrs. Beecher? She saw you nearby?”

“Yes. We were playing hide-and-seek in the barn, but Dewey got mad when the little boy found him. I’m not really sure what happened, but they started wrestling. Dewey got him down and sat on him until he stopped struggling. Stopped breathing.” Harper shut her own eyes, and tears spilled out from them. Then she jumped, remembering more. “I came here. I came to ask Mrs. Beecher why she did it. Why she covered it up.”

Mrs. Beecher had apparently found what she’d been looking for. She was headed back our way. I had to hurry. “Harper, what did she do? What did Mrs. Beecher do that day when you were in that barn?”

“She grabbed me.” Harper refocused on her arms. “She had sharp nails and she shook me. Said that Dewey had accidently killed a rabbit. A white rabbit. And that if I ever told anyone, he would do the same to me. Then she put the rabbit in a suitcase and brought him back to the city with us.”

My shock must have shown.

Harper nodded as sadness welled in her eyes. “But it wasn’t a rabbit. I remember now. That little boy is buried somewhere on our property. In a red suitcase.”

My lungs seized. Cookie told me there’d been a missing child from Peralta around that time, and Peralta and Bosque Farms sat back to back. It was hard to tell where one stopped and the other began. The case had never been solved.

Well, it was certainly about to be.

Still pretending to be unconscious, I lowered my lashes to slits as Mrs. Beecher ambled near. I could see just enough to make out her image as she shuffled into view. Carrying an ice pick. An ice pick. What the hell? This woman was cold. Harper gasped and huddled over me protectively. It was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for me.

The door above us opened, and heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. Sadly, it couldn’t have been Uncle Bob. Not enough time. And Uncle Bob almost always yelled things like, APD! Get your hands up! This guy didn’t yell anything.

I cringed as the guy from the pictures stepped beside me. Partly because he was ginormous, almost twice the height of Mrs. Beecher, but mostly because shit just got real. Now I’d have to outrun both of them with Barbara oozing out of Fred.

“Who are you?” he asked me. He apparently talked to spaghetti, as I was doing my best impression of a wet noodle.

“This woman wants to take you away from me. We’re going to have to plant her in the ground so she can grow.”

He lowered his head. “I don’t think I want to do that anymore.”

“I don’t want to either, but I need you here with me, honeybun. Who else is going to do the yard work?”

The yard work?

“I know, Grandma, but—”

The fucking yard work?

“No buts. Now, you take care of her like you did Miss Harper.”

He looked over into a dark corner of the basement. Toward a fresh mound of dirt. “Harper was nice to me.”

I’d mow her lawn, for fuck’s sake. This was honestly about yard work?

She reached up and patted his big shoulder. “I know. I know. But she was going to turn you in to the police. They would have taken you to jail, sugar britches. What would I do without you?”

He shrugged and she cackled in delight, pinching his cheek as if he were four. I was in so much trouble.

Gripping the ice pick like her life depended on it, she looked down at me. “Hold on, though. I have to make sure she’s dead first.”

She bent to one knee beside me, a laborious act that took her enough time for me to ponder what would happen if the polar ice caps melted. After that played out, I wondered if I should make a run for it or try to reason with Dewey. He seemed to be slightly saner than his counterpart.

“Now, where do you suppose her heart is?” said counterpart asked.

Betty White? She was going for Betty?

Instinctively, my hands shot up to cover her. She was so fragile. So vulnerable. And Mrs. Beecher wanted to jab her with an ice pick? Not on my watch.

The woman jumped back in surprise, and I started to scramble toward the stairs when a weight comparable to a cement mixer landed on my back.

“Oh, that’s good, sugar pie. You hold her there. Now, where’d that ice pick go?”

Harper lunged forward, intending to knock Dewey off me, and was surprised when she flew right through him.

Damn. I should have told her. It was hard when people didn’t know they were dead. The realization sent them into a state of shock, and sometimes I wouldn’t see them again for years. But I really should have told her, because the stunned expression on her face as she turned back and reached through Dewey’s head broke my heart.

She locked gazes with me. “I’m dead?” she asked, her voice hoarse with emotion. She sank to the ground, her expression a thousand miles away.

I strained against the weight of Dewey, wondering what the heck his grandmother fed him but thrilled she’d lost the ice pick. “I’m sorry, Harper.” I could barely get out the words. “I wanted to tell you.”

“What?” Mrs. Beecher asked.

“I called the police,” I said, craning my neck. “They’re on the way.”

She scoffed and turned her back to me. “I need more light. Where could that thing have got off to?”

“They killed me?” Harper asked, still in a daze.

I reached out to her and put my hand on her knee. “Yes. I’m not sure who exactly. Do you remember what happened?”

“She’s talking, Grandma.”

“Well, sit harder.”

He took her advice and bounced, and all I could think was, Oh. My. God. Where was Uncle Bob when I needed him?

Feeling like I was in a horror movie, waiting for evil clowns to appear from under the stairs, I tried to focus on surviving this freak show.

“What are you doing?”

I turned to my other side to see Angel. He wore a scowl of disapproval.

“I’m trying to breathe,” I said, trying to breathe. But darkness crept into my periphery.

“Why is that guy sitting on you?” Then he saw Harper. “Oh, hey.” He nodded an acknowledgment, but she was still in shock. She raised her hands and looked at them, turning them over and over.

“I don’t suppose you could push this guy off me?” I asked him.

“I guess I could try.”

“So, like, soon?”

Angel frowned, then focused on Dewey and concentrated. After a few seconds, he pushed. And Dewey went head over heels.

Sweet potato pie.

I scrambled for the stairs again while fighting the tilt of the Earth. It kept throwing me against the wall, and I realized I probably had a concussion. Unfortunately, Dewey recovered and reached over the stairs, grabbing my leg and pulling it out from under me.

This was going to hurt.

Yep. My chin hit a step, clashing my teeth together. This was so much like a thousand horror movies I’d seen.

Dizziness played a huge part when I tumbled right back down the stairs.

I held up my hands and said, “You need to calm down.”

That was when Dewey wrapped his large hands around my throat. Someday I’d realize telling people to calm down had exactly the opposite effect.

“Hold her still, sugar. I can’t find that danged ice pick. I’ll have to use the skillet.”

“You need to stop thinking like a human,” Angel said.

“You are not helping. Go get Reyes.”

“I’m here,” Reyes said from a corner. “Watching you get your ass kicked. Again.”

His thick black robe undulated around me, not helping at all with the sudden onset of motion sickness. This was definitely the incorporeal Reyes. The Beechers couldn’t see him.

When Dewey’s grip slipped for a split second, I said to Reyes, “Do something.”

“Can I break her neck?”

“No.”

“Can I break his neck?”

I had to think about that one.

Mrs. Beecher was headed my way, skillet at the ready.

“You have to … save … Fred and Barbara,” I said. With Dewey’s hands around my throat, I sounded like a cartoon character. A fact that could not possibly be appealing. Really, how long was he going to let this go on?

“I’m trying to let you come into your powers.”

“Fuck my powers. Do something.”

Reyes dematerialized and rematerialized beside me. I heard the sing of his blade; then Dewey’s grip relaxed, his expression morphed into surprise, and he fell to the floor. Reyes had severed his spine, though it would take the doctors a little while to realize it. There would be no outside trauma. Reyes cut from the inside out.

Mrs. Beecher stopped, her face just as shocked.

“Mrs. Beecher,” I said, coughing and sputtering like a Yugo, “put that frying pan down this instant.”